We've stopped analyzing every debate, on the theory that the importance of these contests has been overrated and the audiences have been relatively small. But tonight may be an exception. Rudy Giiuliani is seeing his Florida firewall collapse and if he can't turn things around before Tuesday, his campaign is over. Tonight, he has to make a major positive impression. It will be interesting to see how he tries to do it.

Rasmussen is out with another national match-up today
and while John McCain, again, continues to be the only Republican to
run ahead of Hillary, the real news is that Romney now only trails
Clinton by 5% -- 47%-42%.
This continues an upwards trajectory for Romney in
matchups against Clinton and means that in Rasmussen's polls at least,
Giuliani currently runs no more strongly against the Democratic
front-runner than Romney does.

As we've noted before, national
polls at this point have little predictive value but they do affect
perceptions on the ground a bit in Iowa and New Hampshire. Thus two new
polls this weekend
that show Hillary ahead of Giuliani nationally will
help quiet any discontent brewing against her
front-runnership, since one of the main threats to her candidacy among
Democrats is the fear that she can't win a general election.

More problems for Hillary: Now Quinnipiac joins Rasmussen in also showing Rudy ahead of her in the national numbers. (McCain is tied with her.) Electability began to become an issue last night -- and we can expect to hear more about it from Hillary's opponents in the days ahead. The problem is that her two main Democratic opponents aren't really doing statistically better -- though Obama does manage to squeak by Giuliani by a single point in this latest Quinnipiac survey.

Polls obviously don't mean much at
this stage, a year before the election. But if Rudy Giuliani gets the
GOP nod, Democrats should not assume the cakewalk many are currently
assuming. In the latest Rasmussen match-up,
Giuliani now leads Clinton by two percentage points which, given the current
weak state of the GOP, is either a remarkable testament to Rudy,
awful weakness by Hillary (not that Obama is doing that well either) or
both.

It's kind of been lost in the flood of other news but a new Rasmussen series of polls suggest
that John McCain is currently the GOP contender who would run strongest
against Hillary Clinton. MCain trails Clinton by a single point;
Giulani trails by a good seven points. In Rasmussen's latest polls,
even Mitt Romney only trails Clinton by six.

The latest Rasmussen numbers in Iowa for the GOP have Romney at 25%, Thompson at 19%, Huckabee at 18%, and Giuliani in fourth at 13%.
That's tight enough to make the race impossible to
call, much less at this early stage. But two things to watch:

-- Huckabee is moving up in the state and if Fred
Thompson continues to disappoint audiences, Huckabee could consolidate the
support on the Right and steal the caucus;

The Politico is reporting that some prominent social conservatives have raised the spectre of a third party movement if Rudy Giuliani is nominated. This is a significant threat to his general election chances -- and indeed to the party's as a whole -- since Giuliani is currently the only Republican candidate running close to the Democratic contenders.